When I’m in pain, I was like that voice of one crying out in the desert; I’m like striving for a thousand years with all those prayers, meditations, and “any source of hope” — just to still be alive the day after. That fact that cancer is a traitor thing, I can never tell when it would break my chance “to still be there” years more.

But you know what friend, on top of it all, it’s only a matter of MINDSET!

Isipin mo lang na kaya mo, makakaya mo kasi you have enough!

Walang hindi kakayanin ang taong nagmamahal since God loved us first. No matter how pressed with time you may feel, as long as you fuel your life with that desire to glorify God with your survival because you chose to trade your “not so good habits” with renewed ways and you advocate on inspiring others with your story, surely you won’t break a promise at all.

Friend, are you by some chance in the same situation as mine? Kung hanggang saan at kung hanggang kailan, be grateful enough that you have that ONE DAY – for with the Lord, that one day is like fulfilling a promise for a thousand years. #sunset

Once, a baby asked God, “They tell me you are sending me to earth tomorrow, but how am I going to live there being so small and helpless?… who will protect me?”

God answered: “Your angel will be waiting for you and will take care of you. Your angel will LOVE YOU AS I DO & defend you even if it means risking her life.”

Such God’s answer eased the baby’s worry and for the last time asked: “God, if I am to leave now, please tell me my angel’s name.” Then God said, “You will simply call her,‘Mom’.”

Just as Jesus said in today’s Gospel, “Do not let your heart be troubled!”, He sent us an “angel in disguise” to protect us from helplessness and to make us feel secured amidst worries.

God could have been so happy if every child would recognize how His assigned angel has done her tasks so well. But sad, that sometimes, it would take a story like this before a child would realize the importance of a Mother:

“Hello Operator, does Heaven have a phone number? Mommy went to Heaven, but I need her here today, my tummy hurts and I fell down, I need her right away. Operator, can you tell me how to find her in this book? Is heaven in the yellow pages, I don’t know where to look.I think my daddy needs her too, at night I hear him cry.I hear him call her name sometimes, but I really don’t know why. Maybe if I call her, she will hurry home to me. Is Heaven very far away, is it across the sea? She’s been gone a long, long time she needs to come home now! I really need to reach her, but I simply don’t know how. Help me find the number please, is it listed under “Heaven”?I can’t read these big big words, I am only seven.I’m sorry operator, I didn’t mean to make you cry, Is your tummy hurting too, or is there something in your eye? If I call my church, maybe they will know. Mommy said when we need help that’s where we should go. I found the number to my church tacked up on the wall. Thank you, operator, I’ll give them a call.”

Whew!!….be worried if this simple short story didn’t make you cry. I read it twice and I shed tears thrice — only to realize that a Mom’s task does not end where she had to stop.

She trains their kids to live the values that would make them dignified persons. She corrects and even reprimands each time a child disobeys and does things under peer pressure & other not so good influences. She reaches out even when kids do not appreciate her every effort. She persists even when kids does not respond to her messages — just to explain what kids should understand. She bears any sort of pain until so unaware her physical health already suffers. She missions out not only to “bridge her every child’s needs” but also to the father of her kids.

If we will only read between these lines and allow God’s message to dig deep within our hearts, we would realize that every Mother’s bit of sacrifice is because “The Father who dwells in her is doing His works.”

“I don’t speak on my own authority.

The Father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to say it.” –John 12:49

In gratitude, we’d rather do something that would make her feel how much we hope not to give a heaven’s operator a call. Instead, we would give HER the warmest HUG and whisper to her our heart out:

“THANK YOU, MY ANGEL, IN DISGUISE! I THANK GOD, HE GAVE ME YOU!

If you’re a “child” who came across this, please honor every STRIVING MOM you know,

Once in a while we’ll first have to be despicable before we’d realize that we’ve already missed a chance! Sometimes we fall short of foresight that we overlook what should have been done at a certain required time.

I was recently bereaved by a friend who had been sick. I wasn’t able to visit her again when I started battling against mine. I had her in my mind several times last December. I planned to call her up too, but scheds and events had just piled up until I ended receiving that sad news; Facebook feeds were filled with posts, mourning for her. I felt so guilty; I should have told her, “let’s fight together!”; I should have made her feel stronger knowing that she’s not struggling alone. I cried hard in regret; I was just consoled when a friend told me, “marami pa kami!; we also want to hear from you!”

When you come to that breaking point that you wouldn’t want to miss chances, your only choice would be to MAXIMIZE TIME! Each time we wake up for a day, God is giving us “that invitation” to come after Him and leave our comfort zones of excuses.

Days may be dark at times, but if we will only consider God’s calling to “come after Him”, we will surely see the LIGHT that will mark the turning point in our life. More Dreams & Plans will materialize which will make our BEST YEAR EVER! #sunset

==========================================================================Published in FeastSMStaRosaBulletin. Series of 2017. Issue #2, 22 January 2017. Light of Jesus’ BEST YEAR EVER: Imagine Your Future Now Series. Talk 3: Implementation

I thought I would be weak and would feel weaker as I had to go through those six cycles!

But here I am … STRONGER! Continually claiming for such BREAKTHROUGH that those six which recently ended would be the last; … no more 7th, no more 8th!

When TOUGH TIMES supersede, you would surely doubt if you’d ever get through it! It has never been easy waking up at the middle of the night with unexplained pains. It has never been easy battling the work of the mind which triggers all the anxieties there are, during each and every cycle; even during downtimes few days after the treatment.

But what makes me survive each time? … that assurance that “God is with me!”

Each time I cry out to God for His mercy & love, there in my dreams, He makes me see that I have succeeded over the valley of death and that I am there, right on top of such valley, enjoying His Oasis of healing, tapping over the refreshing water of life.

Friends, would you hold on to the promises of God, especially when you are faced with uncertainty in your journey? … PLEASE DO!

Just like Joseph & Mary in today’s gospel, we are called “in hope to believe against hope” that God will fulfill all His promises and that He will give us great guarantee through our intuition and our dreams – exactly as what He did with Joseph – whom after such dream, when Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him. Mary on the other hand, nonetheless believed and trusted with all her heart even if she was asked to assume a burden of tremendous responsibility – BOTH A LANGUAGE OF LOVE just to bring us our “Emmanuel”!

May this Advent Season make our lives an inspiration of faith & hope to those we fall short of recognition that amidst life’s enormous challenge, “God is with us” for always! #sunset

Today is the First Sunday of Advent which means “Coming” – a time when we have to be reminded of the reality that we are living in the end times. The coming of Jesus which we celebrate at Christmas should be a constant reminder that we have to personally prepare ourself for His final return on the Day of Judgment – which no one really ever knows when!

Thing is … how PRODUCTIVE have we been as we prepare for such day?

That feeling of rush and persistence when you anticipate that you’re at the brim of such end, ang hirap din pala. It’s as if, you want to exert every extra effort just for you to make up for the lost chances. Haisst…ganito pala, when you feel that you don’t have plenty of time, you would as much strive to be watchful of your own thoughts and decisions in embracing God’s way instead of giving-in to your weaknesses and lame excuses. It has been useless pala allowing yourself to be pressured by financial problems while you sacrifice your health – for when your health already suffers, that’s the only time you’d realize that you have actually sinned against God because your “productivity mindset” has not been for “longtime perspective”!

Way to make ourselves ready? Here’s what I’ve realized: “the currency in heaven is never any amount of money” — BUT LOVE — which we need to share while preparing for His “coming”. It’s our ACT OF GRATITUDE to such love when we have accepted to play part in God’s great plan which is to make everyone of us “walk in the light of the Lord”.

Commit your work to the Lord, then it will succeed. — Proverbs 16:3

This is it I guess – the blessing that we need to be ready about! God wants us to flourish as a tree – so that we can continually give even when we’re no longer personally around to still give. #sunset

Kaya naman, it’s our tendency to believe that we can “start over again” with whatever there was in the past kasi this time, “gusto nating bumawi”!

It’s “what we believe in” that makes us determined to keep on working things out! Not only our eyes, but our heart is gazed on that goal to be “at our best” this time. – kahit na dumating pa sa point na nasasaktan na tayo at nakakasakit na din tayo ng iba.

In today’s gospel, Jesus laid down another “reward”:

44”But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you,45that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.46For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? … 48So be perfect,*just as your heavenly Father is perfect. ”

If we will not realize na tayo yong “enemy at persecutor na ‘yon sa sarili natin”, we will keep on reading through … even memorizing the lines and memories that should already be “deleted” in our system which hinder us from really “moving on” with the best memories instead. We cause our own heart aches, we keep on allowing our “holding back” trends, to the point that we want to find ways to “un-love” so as to finally move-on.

Such a nice “twist” … “starting over again” with a love that’s beautiful and new!

“PSP” … “past is past” – never be BITTER about it! – kasi, without that one part of our history, we will never be BETTER today.